gender roles

One of the types of social roles, a set of expected patterns of behavior (or norms) for men and women. Role in social psychology is defined as a set of norms that determine how people should behave in a given social position. Shakespeare can rightfully be considered the first representative of the role theory, who wrote:

The whole world is a theater

In it, women, men - all actors.

They have their own exits, departures;

And each one plays a role.

Currently, there is no unified theory of social roles as such. Gender roles, their characteristics, origin and development are considered within the framework of various sociological, psychological and biosocial theories. But the available research allows us to conclude that their formation and development in humans is influenced by society and culture, the ideas about the content and specifics of gender roles enshrined in them. And in the course of the historical development of society, the content of gender roles is subject to change. Margaret Mead (M. Mead) in her book "Sex and Temperament" dealt a blow to the belief that men and women are naturally created to fulfill certain roles. Her observations of tribal life in New Guinea convincingly refute this. The women and men she observed played completely different roles, sometimes directly opposite to the stereotypes accepted for each sex. One of the ideas proclaimed by the women's movement of the 1970s was that traditional gender roles hinder personal development and the realization of existing potential. It served as an impetus for the concept of Sandra Bem (S. Bem), which is based on the concept of androgyny, according to which any person, regardless of his biological sex, can combine traditionally male and traditionally female qualities (such people are called androgynes). And this allows people to less rigidly adhere to gender-role norms and freely move from traditionally female occupations to traditionally male ones and vice versa. Developing this idea, Pleck (Pleck) in his works began to talk about the splitting, or fragmentation of gender roles. There is no single role for men or women. Each person performs a number of different roles, such as wives, mothers, students, daughters, girlfriends, etc. Sometimes these roles do not overlap, leading to role conflict. The conflict between the role of a business woman and the role of a mother is well known to everyone. There is now evidence that playing many roles contributes to a person's psychological well-being.

The diversity of gender roles across cultures and eras supports the hypothesis that our gender roles are culturally shaped. According to Hofstede's theory, differences in gender roles depend on the degree of gender differentiation in cultures or the degree of masculinity or femininity of a particular culture. Based on cross-cultural studies, Hofstede showed that people of masculine cultures have a higher achievement motivation, see the meaning of life in work and are able to work hard and hard. A number of cross-cultural studies have also found that feminine cultures with low power distance (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden) have personality-oriented families that promote the assimilation of equality in gender roles. While cultures with a high power distance and pronounced masculinity (Greece, Japan, Mexico) have families focused on rigid gender role positions. Such families ultimately contribute to a rigid differentiation in gender roles.

Gender roles depend not only on culture, but also on the historical era. I. S. Kon noted that the traditional system of differentiation of sex roles and the stereotypes of femininity-masculinity associated with them differed in the following characteristic features: female and male activities and personal qualities differed very sharply and seemed to be polar; these differences were sanctified by religion or references to nature and seemed indestructible; female and male functions were not just complementary, but also hierarchical, the woman was given a dependent, subordinate role. Now, in almost all cultures, radical changes are taking place in relation to gender roles, in particular, in the post-Soviet space, but not as quickly as we would like.

gender roles

Literature:

Kon IS Psychology of gender differences // Questions of psychology. 1981. N 2. S. 53.

Lebedeva NM Introduction to ethical and cross-cultural psychology. M.: Key, 1999. S. 141-142.

Bem S. The measurement of psychological androgyny // Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 1974. 42. R. 165-172.

Hofstede G. Culture's consequences: international differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, 1984.

Mead M. Sex and temperament in three primitive societies. New York: Morrow, 1935.

Pleck J. The theory of male sex role identity: its rise and fall from 1936 to the present // The making of masculinities: the new men's studies. Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987. P. 221-38.

© E. F. Ivanova

Thesaurus of gender studies terminology. - M.: East-West: Women's Innovation Projects. A. A. Denisova. 2003 .

See what "Gender roles" are in other dictionaries:

gender roles- ... Wikipedia

Gender roles (gender roles)- - attitudes, as well as activities that society associates with one sex or another ... Social Work Dictionary

Gender differences- a set of specific psychological and physiological characteristics of men and women. Gender differences are based on the sexual dimorphism of males and females. There is an academic subject "gender psychology", which studies both qualitatively and ... Wikipedia

GENDER ISSUES- (eng. gender gender, gender), social and psychological problems associated with the role of male and female persons in society, since differences in behavior patterns of men and women can become causes of intrapersonal, interpersonal and intergroup ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Gender Issues- (eng. gender gender, gender) social and psychological problems associated with the role of male and female persons in society, since differences in behavior patterns of men and women can become causes of intrapersonal, interpersonal and intergroup ... ... Political science. Vocabulary.

GENDER DIFFERENCES- (eng. gender genus, sex), differences between people due to their gender. So, it is believed that men have more developed spatial and mathematical abilities, they are more aggressive and dominant, more significant for them ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Gender differences- Contents 1 Gender differences 2 Gender identity 3 ... Wikipedia

A stereotype is a judgment, in a sharply simplifying and generalizing form, with emotional coloring, attributing certain properties to a certain class of persons or, conversely, denying them these properties. Stereotypes are seen as special forms... ...

- (personal computers) are observed during human-computer interaction in all age groups. Stereotypes of public consciousness and the media, the bias of education and software products being produced to some extent determine that ... Gender Studies Terms

GENDER TECHNOLOGIES- methods, mechanisms, channels for the formation of the institution of sex and the consolidation of the corresponding gender identifications. The logic of the modern definition of social gender (see Gender) points to the inseparable connection between the concepts of gender, discourse, and power. G. t.… … Modern Philosophical Dictionary

Books

• Why Men Lie and Women Roar by Allan Pease. In a world where gender roles are so clearly blurred and transformed, the authors have brilliantly managed to articulate the differences in the perception of reality between men and women, and explain the motives ...

: the first concept describes social expectations external to a person in connection with his gender, the second - the internal self-perception of a person as a representative of a particular gender. A person's gender identity and gender role may not match - particularly in transgender and intersex people. The alignment of gender role with gender identity is part of the transgender transition.

Gender roles in different cultures

AT modern societies the binary gender system dominates - a way of social organization in which people are divided into two opposite groups - men and women. The binary gender system implies a strict correspondence between sex assigned at birth and gender role, as well as other parameters (in particular, gender identity and sexual orientation). As anthropological studies show, the establishment of such a correspondence is not universal: in many cultures, biological, in particular anatomical sex, does not play a key role in determining gender role or gender identity. Not universal and the allocation of only two genders. For example, many native North American cultures have three or four genders and corresponding gender roles. In West African Yoruba culture, gender is traditionally not a significant social category, and social roles are determined primarily by age and kinship.

Even within close cultures or within the same culture, gender roles can differ markedly. For example, in 18th and 19th century European secular culture, women were expected to be weak and frail, and in most peasant cultures, women were considered to be naturally strong and hardy. In Western (North American and Western European) middle-class cultures since the 1950s, the female gender role has been that of the housewife, and participation in productive work for women has been excluded. Yet at the same time and in the same societies, working outside the home was an expected and self-evident element of the gender role for working-class women. Women's gender role in socialist societies also involved a combination of work outside the home, housework, and family care.

Historical aspect

The ratio of gender roles has changed significantly over the course of human history. In particular, historians note a significant increase in the social role of women in Europe during the late Middle Ages (1300-1500).

Gender Development Explanations

There are two main points of view in the debate about the origin of gender roles and differences: supporters of biological determinism suggest that gender differences are determined by biological, natural factors, and supporters of social constructivism that they are shaped by society in the process of socialization. Various theories of gender development have been put forward in science. Biologically based theories explaining differences in gender roles by evolution have not found convincing empirical evidence. Empirical research has also refuted psychoanalytic theories that explained gender development through the child's relationship with parents. The strongest empirical evidence exists for cognitive and socio-cognitive theories that explain gender development as a complex interplay of biological, cognitive, and social factors.

Viewpoints on the origin of gender roles

Ordinary consciousness often presents the gender roles that exist in a given society in a particular historical period as natural and natural. There is also a plethora of research seeking to uncover the biological basis of gender roles—in particular, establishing the biological origin of gender differences between men and women, as well as finding the biological causes of gender nonconformity. But the historical and anthropological knowledge accumulated to date does not support this point of view, since the diversity of ideas about gender and gender roles in the cultures of the world and throughout history is too great. At the same time, modern social sciences have collected a lot of data on how gender roles are formed under the influence of various social processes.

Biological determinism

The view that social phenomena are determined by biological factors is called biological determinism. A related concept is naturalization social practices - describes the process of interpreting social practices as facts of nature. Biological determinism in relation to gender roles is expressed, for example, in the widespread assertions that motherhood is a woman's natural destiny, or that men are not naturally emotional.

Since the end of the 19th century, scientists from various scientific fields have conducted many studies of gender differences between men and women. Until the 1970s, the main purpose of these studies was to confirm the biological nature of gender differences and to substantiate the content of existing gender roles. However, the results of most studies show that there are much more similarities between men and women than differences. In a widely cited review study, psychologists Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin cite four dimensions in which differences between men and women have been found: spatial awareness, mathematical ability, language skills, and aggressiveness. But even these discovered differences are small and strongly depend on the methodology and conditions of the study.

Since the 1970s, scholars have also become interested in the causes of gender non-conformity, i.e. violations of gender roles. Conducted, in particular, research aimed at clarifying the biological causes of transsexuality. There are currently theories linking transsexuality to genetics, brain structure, brain activity, and androgen exposure during fetal development. At the same time, the results of these studies are also controversial - for example, the identified features of the structure of the brain of transsexual people are not unique (similar differences are observed in homosexual people compared to heterosexual people), and there is evidence that the structure of the brain can change under the influence of life experience.

social constructivism

The view that gender roles are formed, or constructed, by society belongs to the theory of social constructivism. The basis for studying the social nature and processes of constructing gender roles was laid, in particular, by the theoretical work of Simone de Beauvoir and Michel Foucault. Studies of the social construction of gender roles show how, in the process of socialization and interaction between people, those gender differences and expectations are formed that are perceived as natural and natural in everyday consciousness.

According to the latest research, the observed differences between men and women are largely due to social factors. For example, research reveals several reasons why women are less successful in mathematics than men: firstly, they lack confidence in their abilities, and secondly, they consider math classes inappropriate for their gender role and refuse them even when show excellent abilities in this area, thirdly, parents and teachers encourage girls to do mathematics much less than boys. Thus, as some researchers note, gender stereotypes work like self-fulfilling prophecies: in the course of socialization, people are given information about gender roles that forms their expectations of themselves, and as a result they show gender-conforming behavior.

Biological theories

Biologically based explanations of gender development and differences are widespread. One of the most influential such theories, evolutionary psychology, explains gender differentiation by heredity. The hereditary origin of gender roles is analyzed through preferences in the choice of sexual partners, reproductive strategies, the contribution of parents to the care of offspring, and the aggressiveness of men. From the point of view of this theory, modern gender roles are due to the successful adaptation of the ancestors of modern man to differences in the reproductive tasks of men and women.

Empirical evidence refutes the main tenets of biological theories of gender development. Many researchers also criticize the methodology of biologically oriented research. Nevertheless, biological theories continue to enjoy great popularity, including among the general public. According to some authors, this is due to the fact that in many societies, ordinary consciousness ascribes to biology the status of absolute truth. In addition, the provisions of biological theories correspond to gender stereotypes.

Reproductive strategies

According to evolutionary psychology, in the process of evolution, different reproductive strategies have been fixed at the genetic level in men and women, dictated by the need to ensure the survival of man as a biological species. The reproductive strategy of men is to maximize the spread of their genes, so men prefer to have many sexual partners and not spend time caring for offspring. The reproductive strategy of women is to have few sexual partners who will be able to provide themselves and their offspring with the necessary resources for survival.

Many researchers question the very concept of reproductive strategy. From the point of view of the general theory of evolution, natural selection is determined by immediate practical benefits, not by future goals. The claim that ancient men sought to father as many children as possible, and ancient women to find reliable breadwinners, suggests that they had a conscious or unconscious goal, which some authors argue contradicts the Darwinian functional explanation.

Other authors point out that the evolutionary psychology hypothesis is not supported by empirical evidence. In particular, the assumption that ancient women did not have enough food during pregnancy and lactation, looks quite convincing, but with the same success, based on this, it can be assumed that in connection with this, women developed increased abilities for orientation in space and memory , which would allow them to find and remember the location of food sources. Additional information is needed to substantiate any hypothesis about specific adaptive mechanisms. Such information could be data from molecular studies of fossilized human remains or data from archeology, but evolutionary psychology does not offer such data. Some authors note that the concept of reproductive strategies is an attempt to "hindsight" explain modern gender stereotypes.

Anthropological evidence also speaks against the hypothesis of reproductive strategies. They show, in particular, that reproductive behavior is influenced by cultural beliefs about the human body and reproduction. In cultures where it is believed that multiple partners are required to reproduce, women have sexual contact with different partners, and these partners are not jealous of each other.

Choice of sexual partners

Evolutionary psychology states that men tend to choose young and physically attractive mates because such mates are more likely to bear healthy offspring, and women tend to choose financially wealthy men who can feed them. In confirmation of these data, the results of surveys are given, in which men and women named the most attractive characteristics of potential partners for themselves. However, numerous studies show that what people say is significantly different from how they actually behave: in fact, physical attractiveness affects the choice of partners in men and women in the same way. On the other hand, indicators of physical attractiveness vary greatly across cultures around the world, and most of these characteristics are not related to fertility. Some authors also point out that evolutionary psychology only explains heterosexual behavior and suggest that evolutionary psychologists avoid looking at research data from non-heterosexual people because their behavior and gender roles do not match gender stereotypes and thus undermine evolutionary explanations.

Aggressive behavior

Psychoanalytic theories

Although psychoanalytic theory has had a major impact on the development of developmental psychology, empirical evidence does not support it. Research has not found a strong relationship between same-sex parent identification and gender role learning. Children's role models are much more likely to be caring or socially powerful adults than to be threatening adults with whom the child has a competitive relationship.

The lack of empirical support for classical psychoanalytic theory has led to the emergence of various updated versions of it. In the field of gender development, one of the most influential recent versions is Nancy Chodorow's theory. According to this theory, gender identity is formed during infancy and not during the phallic phase, as Freud claimed. Both boys and girls initially identify with their mother, but because daughters are the same sex as their mother, identification between daughters and mothers is stronger than between sons and mothers. In the course of further development, girls retain identification with their mother and psychologically merge with her. As a result, the self-image of the girl and the woman is characterized by a strong sense of interdependence, which translates into a desire for interpersonal relationships and encourages the woman, in turn, to become a mother. The development of the boy is determined by the desire to separate from the mother and further define himself through difference from women, which leads to the debasement of femininity.

But the empirical evidence does not support Chodorow's theory either. Research does not find a stronger bond between mothers and daughters than between mothers and sons. There is also no evidence that women's needs for interpersonal relationships are met only through motherhood. On the contrary, studies show that women whose only social role is that of mother and wife are more prone to psychological problems than childless married or unmarried women and working mothers.

Cognitive and social theories

Cognitive and social theories of gender development include theories of cognitive development, gender schemas, social learning, and social cognitive theory. Although at the initial stages these theories differed significantly from each other, and their supporters had heated discussions among themselves, modern versions of these theories have much in common. In general, cognitive and social theories consider gender development as a complex process of interaction of biological, social and cognitive factors. All of them pay significant attention to the social sources of gender development and the active role that a person plays in their own gender development.

Social sources of gender development

The social sources of gender development include, in particular, the influence of parents, other significant adults and peers, as well as information pressure from the media, cinema, literature, etc.

Influence of parents

Differences in the upbringing of boys and girls are described by the concept of "differential socialization". Differential socialization is not necessarily expressed in the form of direct instructions or prohibitions. As studies show, differential socialization begins even before the birth of a child, as soon as its sex is determined using ultrasound. Mothers who learn the sex of their unborn child in this way describe boys as "active" and "mobile", and girls as "calm". From birth, babies tend to be surrounded by gender-specific toys, diapers, and other items; male infants are described as "big", "strong" and "independent", while girls are referred to as "gentle", "delicate" and "beautiful", even if there are no objective differences in the appearance or behavior of the infants. Thus, the ideas and expectations of children related to gender are formed by adults on the basis of gender stereotypes long before the child can begin to show this or that behavior.

Differential socialization continues into the later life of the child. For example, numerous studies show that parents are more stimulating and more responsive to motor activity in infant boys than in girls. Another illustrative experiment concerns the influence of adult gender stereotypes on the choice of toys for children. The experiment was initially carried out with the participation of a three-month-old child, and later again with the participation of several children aged from three to 11 months. Three groups of adults were asked to play with the child, while the first group was told that the child was a girl, the second group that it was a boy, and the third group was not informed about the gender of the child. The adults had three toys at their disposal: a doll, a ball, and a gender-neutral tooth ring. Most of the adults who considered the child to be a boy offered him a ball, and the majority of those who considered the child to be a girl - a doll, without trying to find out which of the toys interests the child more.

Peer Influence

As the child's social world expands, peer groups become another important source of gender development, as well as social learning in general. In interaction with peers, children, starting at the age of three or four, encourage each other for gender-typical behavior, as well as for playing in gender-homogeneous groups, and punish for behavior that is considered inappropriate for their gender.

Information pressure

Finally, the media play a significant role in gender development, especially television, as well as literature, cinema and video games. In these sources from which children receive information about gender roles, men and women are often portrayed in an exaggerated stereotype: men are portrayed as active and adventurous, while women are portrayed as dependent, unambitious and emotional. The depiction of the professional life of men and women often does not correspond to the real state of affairs: men are portrayed as representatives of various professions, leaders and bosses, and women are either housewives or working in low-status positions. Such an image does not correspond to the actual statistics of the professional employment of men, nor the wide involvement of women in professional activities. Studies show that gender stereotypes in the media and culture have a big impact on children: those who watch a lot of TV form more stereotyped ideas about gender roles. On the other hand, the non-stereotypical depiction of representatives of different genders expands the range of desires and aspirations in children, as well as the options for roles that they consider acceptable for their gender. The recurring image of equal participation of representatives of different genders in certain activities contributes to the steady softening of gender stereotypes in young children.

Active human role in gender development

Social sources of gender development often provide conflicting information about gender roles and impose conflicting expectations on the child. This requires the child, starting from a very early age, to actively seek and build his own rules and ideas about gender as a new and significant social category for him. Activity in the formation of ideas about gender is manifested, in particular, in selective attention and memory, as well as in the formation of preferences - for example, gender-typical or atypical toys, games with peers of one's own or another gender.

The Importance of Gender Roles

see also

Notes

1. Nanda, Serena. Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations. - Waveland Pr Inc, 1999. - ISBN 978-1577660743.
2. Roscoe, Will. Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America. - Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. - ISBN 978-0312224790.
3. Oyewumi, Oyeronke. Conceptualizing gender: the eurocentric foundations of feminist concepts and the challenge of African epistemologies // Jenda: a Journal of Culture and African Woman Studies. - 2002. - Vol. 2.
4. Connell R. Gender and Power: Society, Personality, and Gender Politics. - M.: New literary review, 2015. - ISBN 978-5-4448-0248-9.
5. hooks, bell. Rethinking the Nature of Work // Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center . - Pluto Press, 2000. - ISBN 9780745316635.
6. Zdravomyslova E., Temkina A. (ed.). Russian gender order: a sociological approach. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the European University in St. Petersburg, 2007. - ISBN 978-5-94380-060-3.
7. , Gender Roles in Late Medieval Europe, p. 297.
8. Bussey, K., Bandura, A. Social cognitive theory of gender development and differentiation // Psychological review. - 1999. - T. 106, No. 4. - S. 676-713.
9. Fausto-Sterling A. Beyond difference: A biologist's perspective // ​​Journal of Social Issues. - 1997. - V. 53, No. 2. - S. 233–258.
10. Martin, C.L., et al. Cognitive Theories of Early Gender Development // Psychological Bulletin. - 2002. - T. 128, No. 6. - S. 903-933.
11. Burn Sean. Gender psychology = The Social Psychology of Gender. - St. Petersburg: Prime Eurosign, 2002.
12. Maccoby, E. and Jacklin, C. The Psychology of Sex Differences. - Stanford University Press, 1974. - ISBN 9780804708593.
13. Hare, L; Bernard, P; Sanchez, F; Baird, P; Vilain, E; Kennedy, T; Harley, V (2009). “Androgen Receptor Repeat Length Polymorphism Associated with Male-to-Female Transsexualism” . Biological Psychiatry. 65 (1): 93-6. DOI:10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.08.033. PMC. PMID.
14. Kruijver F. P., Zhou J. N., Pool C. W., Hofman M. A., Gooren L. J., Swaab D. F. Male-to-female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus // The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. - 2000. - No. 85(5). - P. 2034-2041.
15. Berglund, H.; Lindstrom, P.; Dhejne-Helmy, C.; Savic, I. (2007). “Male-to-Female Transsexuals Show Sex-Atypical Hypothalamus Activation When Smelling Odorous Steroids.” Cerebral Cortex. 18 (8): 1900-8. DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhm216. PMID.
16. Schneider, H; Pickel, J; Stalla, G (2006). “Typical female 2nd–4th finger length (2D:4D) ratios in male-to-female transsexuals-possible implications for prenatal androgen exposure.” Psychoneuroendocrinology. 31 (2): 265-9. DOI:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.07.005 . PMID.
17. LeVay S (August 1991). “A difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual and homosexual men.” Science. 253 (5023): 1034-7. DOI:10.1126/science.1887219. PMID.
18. Byne W, Tobet S, Mattiace LA; et al. (September 2001). “The interstitial nuclei of the human anterior hypothalamus: an investigation of variation with sex, sexual orientation, and HIV status.” Horm Behav. 40 (2): 86-92. DOI:10.1006/hbeh.2001.1680. PMID.
19. Eccles, J.S. Bringing young women to math and science // Gender and thought: Psychological perspectives / Crawford, M., and Gentry, M.. - New York: Springer, 1989.
20. Kimball, M.M. A new perspective on women "s math achievement // Psychological Bulletin. - 1989. - T. 105, No. 2. - S. 198-214.
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A gender role is a type of social role that defines acceptable and desirable behavior for men and women.

Almost all women in the North Caucasus are economically active

Everything related to development tends to change, so there is nothing permanent in the world, including the changing expectations of the behavior of men and women. But how gender roles are fixed and what they are caused by, we will understand in our article.

Consider the concept of gender role in order to clearly understand the meaning of this phenomenon.

Gender roles represent traditional behavioral responses expected from males and females in society. They can be expected, attributed, imposed, required by society, but any person has the right to decide for himself whether he needs stereotypical behavior.

They are instilled by society by educating from childhood a certain manner of behavior inherent in one sex or another. Let's find out what the gender role of a representative of one sex or another means on specific examples.

Examples of gender roles

Examples of gender roles of an individual have changed over time and the change of humanity. Not only that, they keep changing. So, the gender roles of a person are imposed and prevent him from manifesting himself the way nature created him. These stereotypes of behavior lead to misunderstanding between the sexes, conflicts, and therefore make people unhappy.

Consider now some examples of gender roles. Since ancient times, a man has been a hunter, leader, warrior with such character traits as self-confidence, a tendency to risk, aggression, and quick reaction. The woman, on the other hand, was always distinguished by gentleness, compassion, care and was engaged only in maintaining the hearth and educating the future generation.

Naturally, time leaves its mark on the stereotypes of behavior, so it is rare to find truly feminine or masculine behavior in its purest form.

Women's gender role

Recently, representatives of the beautiful half of humanity are increasingly claiming equality and almost duplicating the male line of behavior, earning money, holding leadership positions and serving in the army.

What are the features of the female gender role?

The female gender role in the former understanding implies the keeper of the hearth, mother and wife. Since modernity dictates its own laws, the gender role of women is changing and expanding.

The modern gender role of women has expanded. Now the lady is often not only the keeper of the hearth, but also the worker.

To do this, you will have to figure out what are the features of the female gender role. It lies in the fact that a woman strives to be successful, active, hardy in the conditions of the rules prevailing in society, equalizing both sexes. Thus, a lady should have time to manage the house, give birth to children, build a career, and also look amazing.

male gender role

Men's actions are characterized by the presence of fortitude, will, courage at all times, but this does not mean that the changes have not affected men as well.

Traditional upbringing of a boy as a bearer of a male gender role (masculinity)

The essence of the male gender role

In the modern world, not only strength and courage are expected from the representatives of the stronger sex. Men are required to win status and respect, mental and emotional stability, physical endurance and avoidance of women's activities. If a man does not achieve success in any one aspect, he seeks to compensate for this by showing himself more actively in another.

A lot of other qualities are gradually added to this list, such as intelligence, caring, restraint, the ability to communicate, empathize.

At the same time, such signs of male behavior as clarity of thinking, stability and the transfer of the gene to the future generation remain unshakable.

What is the difference between the gender roles of men and women?

With the development of society, the representatives of the beautiful half of humanity no longer want to put up with the fate of a housewife, which makes them reconsider social stereotypes about women's behavior. This is explained by the fact that society lives according to male laws, where there is a winner and a loser, and there is also no sympathy and compassion.

This is often followed by a role reversal where the lady is the breadwinner and her husband is in charge of the household. There are a lot of such couples lately, and the woman herself is not satisfied with the situation, as well as the man, because the actions laid down by nature are absent in both.

It should only be noted that the husband will cope with any household chores no worse than his beloved, but only in one he will not be able to replace her, because only a woman is destined to endure and give birth to a child. As you can see, the boundaries between the generally accepted behavior of both sexes are blurred, bringing with it a lot of consequences.

The equalization of representatives of different sexes leads to the fact that the family has no time to have a child, because there are still so many things that this can interfere with. Girls are getting married later, because they first need to make a career, which also aggravates the demographic situation and devalues ​​the institution of the family.

How are gender roles fixed?

Children of both sexes are born and have standard behavior. Social reactions are acquired by girls and boys already under the influence of upbringing and social expectations. Girls are set up for self-sacrifice, tenderness, devotion, they are persuaded to be calm and allowed to show emotions. Boys, on the other hand, are shown traditional male behavior, goals and principles, they require restraint in emotions and impatience with injustice.

It is worth noting that some stereotypes are already being criticized. And although it is considered shameful for a girl to be the first to get acquainted, while shy boys are not at all held in high esteem, this situation no longer surprises anyone, while even 100 years ago it would have led to disastrous consequences.

So, if a girl starts to fight, then she is stopped instead of being enrolled in the appropriate section, and for a boy this is considered the norm. And vice versa, a boy who is engaged in dancing causes ridicule or an ironic smile in many.

As a result, men and women, when creating a family, do not understand each other, get used to opposite views on life for a long time, quarrel and gradually learn mutual understanding.

Do not forget that every modern person has the freedom to choose those reactions in which he does not lose his essence, remaining himself, ignoring all sorts of stereotypes and imposed expectations.

Now it has become clear what gender is, how gender roles are fixed, so each person can objectively assess his destiny in the family and behave as the inner voice of conscience prompts.

We wish you to always be yourself and be happy!

Before the dawn of the 21st century, it seemed that only technologies will evolve in the world of the future, but with its transformation into the world of the present, it turned out that it is still far from ideal. Even after seeing the sixth iPhone, we still continue to dress boys in blue, and girls in pink, and when they grow up, we expect “male” and “female” actions from them. Nevertheless, a slow but sure process of revising established standards and relationships has begun a new round in society - it turned out that following it is no less interesting than following the adventures of the Higgs boson. We talk a lot about the perception of physicality, with ourselves, as well as how important it is for our general comfort and love for the diversity and uniqueness of people in a multicultural global reality. However, this process is impossible without an understanding of how the existing models of relations have developed, how ideas about the “correct” or “traditional” have been entrenched in our minds, and why changes are inevitable. We start a big conversation about gender roles - the social perception of gender - and about what is happening in the modern world with the concepts of "man" and "woman".

Text: Alice Taezhnaya
Photo: Vera Mishurina

Stay in my skin
How Gender Roles Work

To understand how strongly our behavior is dictated by gender roles, it is enough to analyze a day in the life of a modern person. Unless, of course, you live in seclusion, then those around you, guided by the understandable and learned experience of millennia-old patriarchy, most likely expect you to be included in the generally accepted system of values ​​and concepts. A determined son and an attentive daughter, a disciplined husband and a calm wife, an authoritative father and an affectionate mother, an enterprising subordinate and an understanding boss - we unconsciously fit into this coordinate system so as not to be strangers among our own.

The dramaturgy of comedy and tragedy is based on gender roles. Remember episode"Friends" about the male nanny: everyone becomes more comfortable when the nanny becomes a girl, and not the sentimental and often crying guy Sandy with a perfect education and amazing characteristics. Or remember what happens to Betty Draper in Mad Men when a single mother who has divorced her husband arrives in a peaceful housewife village, works hard and raises children herself.

We call unbalanced men "hysterics" behind our backs, and decisive girls with principles - "heifers with eggs", we compete in a sense of humor using gender stereotypes, and laugh deafeningly at the same jokes Barney Stinson or Michael Scott. In our speech, we constantly choose emotionally colored and far from gender-neutral descriptions of ourselves, the people and phenomena around us, and it is these descriptions that demonstrate and reinforce the perception of one or another gender.

Who has benefited from the shift in gender roles

Can gender role
be a free choice

At the end of the 19th century, Great Britain - the main and strongest empire - and behind it the whole of Europe canonize the role of a woman in Coventry Patmore's poem "The Angel in the House", which he dedicated to his virtuous wife, and John Everett Millais will draw her idealized portrait. Around the same time and in this city, Jack the Ripper will brutally kill a huge number of London prostitutes, who had been humiliated and raped by the police for a decade before that for forced tests for venereal diseases, and Oscar Wilde will undermine his health in prison, sitting on charges of sodomy. Reactionary laws and private histories show that even now female images in culture mask, but do not change the state of things. Two world wars and three waves of feminism were not enough for the system to stop reproducing itself: gender stereotypes in 2014 prevent not only taking a wife’s surname after marriage, but also calculating one’s strength in a career and earnings when meeting with the “glass ceiling”.

Are gender stereotypes alive?

If the power and influence of gender stereotypes seems to have waned over time, experiment. Open Dahl's dictionary of proverbs, collected by the middle of the 19th century, and then read the reader's comments on popular materials on your favorite site. “Husband is at least as big as a fist, but I don’t sit behind my husband’s head as an orphan.” "Do not beat your wife - and do not be sweet." "Baba is dear - from the stove to the doorstep." "The hair is long, but the mind is short." “A dog is smarter than a woman: it doesn’t bark at its owner.” "A chicken is not a bird, and a woman is not a person." "Wherever the devil dares, he will send a woman there." We no longer use most of them, but their meaning is firmly planted in the collective unconscious and crawls out into the light at every opportunity.

Dialogues between men and women on sensitive issues on forums or in comments are most often built on the basis of repeatedly lost gender roles. These scenarios were exposed by John Money and Robert Stoller, John Gray tried to popularize and explain them in Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, the topic of gender is constantly heard in contemporary art and news, but most often the news, even on problem sites like Jezebel or PolicyMic on the spread of viral content, reproduce ready-made meanings and rarely open their eyes to the other side of the problem.

Why gender is last
and the most steadfast stronghold of tradition

The problem of gender is inscribed in the spectrum of modern existential and economic problems in which our unstable, over-consuming and competitive society is immersed. Ethnically mixed marriages and migration are changing the demographic composition of seemingly stable communities: whether it is possible to call Hong Kong European and Marseille Asian and whether it is generally correct to use the terms Europe and Asia in the 21st century remains a question. Alternative sources of income and a modern economy with contract work and bitcoin are reshaping the employment relationship. But books on prosperity and life hacks continue to be bestsellers, only now Dale Carnegie's advice is being replaced by instructive biographies of tech moguls.

At the same time, both the ideal of the communist future and the American dream seem equally unattainable as a strategy for the global community. One has discredited itself with inefficient regimes with double standards, the other creates a destructive competition and objectively cannot stop another economic crisis. And if, with political ideologies or professional choices, people can still take the risk of representing these systems outside, then gender - one of the most basic, intimate and constant constants - seems to be the last link between this man and this woman with the idea of ​​a person in general.

Prejudice against career women exists regardless of the gender of the subject assessing them.

“It so happened historically” is one of the easiest ways to justify and connect a person here and now with a million long-dead anonymous people, to whom a thread of repeatedly rewritten history from textbooks, confused traces of genealogy and global cultural monuments that cannot be ignored, whether it is pyramids, bible or hollywood.

The transgender performance experiment tells a lot about the verdicts that most of us have in store for both sexes and their acceptable behavior. A biological woman, having performed a sex change operation, finds herself in a comfortable and practically invulnerable position. But the "man" who "became" a woman immediately raises doubts about professionalism and receives several humiliating comments about his work. Another study shows that prejudice against career women exists regardless of the gender of the subject assessing them. Comments addressed to men contain a lot of constructive criticism and positive remarks about the need to work on oneself, comments to women always have an emotional and harsh evaluative coloring with a transition to the individual.

Gender scholar Londa Schiebinger speaks of the ubiquitous tendency of young children to make choices based on the reaction of their environment:
in children, according to her impressions, different qualities and inclinations are still encouraged by parents. In part, her books explain the division into male and female professions and answer, among other things, the question “why there were no great women scientists” or quite already one of the most frequently asked questions “why there are no great women artists”, which at one time well answered by Linda Nochlin. This, however, does not negate the fact that in some societies the issue of gender roles is obviously not so acute (for example, Scandinavia) and the existence of women in power, and men in the family, as well as a wide range of LGBTI relations, does not need additional argument there. .

Can the modern family save us from the trap of gender roles

As Time frightens and reassures us at the same time, there is no such thing as a typical family anymore. Indeed, if the number of divorced parents with joint custody, separated spouses and same-sex couples raising children reaches significant percentages, it is strange and illogical to be programmed for gender roles that cannot be realized in life. Most likely, a man in a sling and a woman working on maternity leave are not the main, and certainly not the last, result of changing social roles. But, given how late different forms of life in the family and society get their names (some appeared in the language a couple of decades ago), one can only affirm that the most unhurried mutations occur with gender roles. A complete rejection of them is as far away as building a new economic system or a hyperintense global cataclysm: now no expert will take the responsibility to predict the exact shelf life of the current state of affairs.

In addition, having abandoned the usual gender roles, we will have to rebuild our attitude to daily habits, friends and relatives, change very funny sexist jokes to some other equally good ones, come up with a new cinema without the usual genres, characters and plots, voluntarily abandon the majority gender-sensitive products and boycott jobs that pay us unevenly. We will have to put aside going to psychoanalysts that revere Freud's theories and accept the possibility that hormone therapy and body experimentation will become common practice after years of public resistance. The utopian consciousness is building up such a scenario, unlike today, in which gender can be changed almost as often as a haircut, professions as hobbies, partners as books at the head, and these books themselves at the head will have to write about something else and on another language to be of interest to us in our yet to be invented new roles.

gender roles

gender roles- these are the roles due to the differentiation of people in society on the basis of gender. Gender role - differentiation of activities, statuses, rights and obligations of individuals depending on their gender. Gender roles are a type of social roles, they are normative, they express certain social expectations (expectations), they are manifested in behavior. At the cultural level, they exist in the context of a certain system of gender symbolism and stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Gender roles are always associated with a certain normative system that a person learns and refracts in his mind and behavior.

Thus, gender roles can be seen as external manifestations of patterns of behavior and attitudes that allow other people to judge whether an individual is male or female. In other words, a gender role is a social manifestation of an individual's gender identity.

Gender roles refer to a type of prescribed roles. The status of a future man or a future woman is acquired by a child at birth, and then, in the process of gender socialization, the child learns to perform one or another gender role. Gender stereotypes existing in society have a great influence on the process of socialization of children, largely determining its direction. Under gender stereotypes standardized ideas about behavior patterns and character traits that correspond to the concepts of "male" and "female" are understood.

gender stereotype, regarding the consolidation of family and professional roles in accordance with gender, is one of the most common stereotypes that prescribe standard models of role behavior for men and women. According to this stereotype for women main social roles are family roles(mother, mistress) for men - professional roles(worker, laborer, earner, breadwinner). Men are usually evaluated by professional success, women by the presence of a family and children. Folk wisdom says that a "normal" woman wants to get married and have children and that all other interests she may have are secondary to these family roles. It is believed that in order to fulfill the traditional role of a housewife, a woman must develop her abilities to be sensitive, compassionate and caring. While men are required to be achievement-oriented, women are required to be people-oriented and seek close interpersonal relationships.

One of the bases for the formation of traditional gender roles is the division of labor based on gender. The main criterion in this division is the biological ability of women to bear children. In modern societies, that social necessity for the division of labor on the basis of the childbearing ability of women, which existed in archaic societies, has long since disappeared. Most women work in the industrial sector outside the home, and men have long ceased to be only “warriors and hunters” who protect and feed their families. Nevertheless, stereotypes about traditional gender roles are very stable: women are required to concentrate on the private (home) sphere of activity, and men - in the professional, public sphere.

An important role in the approval of the gender stereotype about the consolidation of social roles in accordance with gender was played by the concept of "natural" complementarity of the sexes by Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales, who considered the differentiation of male and female roles in structural and functional terms. According to their point of view, spouses should play two different roles in the modern family. instrumental role consists in maintaining communication between the family and the outside world - this is a professional activity that brings material income and social status; expressive role involves, first of all, caring for children and regulating relationships within the family. How is the distribution of responsibilities between spouses based on these two roles? Parsons and Bales believe that a wife's ability to bear children and care for children determine her expressive role unambiguously, and a husband who cannot perform these biological functions becomes an instrumental role performer.

This theory contributed to the integration into a single scheme of socio-anthropological and psychological data. However, feminist criticism has shown that the dichotomy of instrumentality and expressiveness, for all its empirical and worldly persuasiveness, is based not so much on natural gender differences as on social norms, adherence to which hampers the individual self-development and self-expression of women and men.

Traditional gender roles hinder the development of the individual and the realization of the existing potential. This idea was the impetus for the development of S. Bem androgyny concepts, according to which a person, regardless of his biological sex, can have both masculine and femininity features, combining both traditionally feminine and traditionally masculine qualities. This allows you to highlight the masculine, feminine, androgynous models of gender roles. This idea was developed further, and J. Plec in his works began to talk about the splitting or fragmentation of gender roles. There is no single male or female role. Each person performs a number of different roles (wife, mother, business woman, etc.), often these roles may not be combined, which leads to an intrapersonal role conflict.

Gender roles can be studied at three different levels. At the macro-social level we are talking about the differentiation of social functions by gender and the corresponding cultural norms. To describe the “female role” at this level means to reveal the specifics of the social position of a woman (typical activities, social status, mass ideas about a woman) by correlating it with the position of a man within a given society, system.

At the level of interpersonal relationships the gender role is derived not only from general social norms and conditions, but also from the particular system of joint activity being studied. The role of a mother or wife always depends on how the responsibilities are specifically distributed in a given family, how the roles of father, husband, children, etc. are defined in it.

At the intra-individual level the internalized gender role is derived from the characteristics of a particular personality: an individual builds his behavior as a husband or father, taking into account his ideas about what, in his opinion, a man should be in general, based on all his conscious and unconscious attitudes and life experience.

From the book Gender Psychology author author unknown

Section III Gender Characteristics of the Personality

From the book Brainbuilding [or How professionals pump their brains] author Komarov Evgeny Ivanovich

Gender conflicts Gender conflict is caused by a contradiction between normative ideas about personality traits and behavioral characteristics of men and women and the impossibility or unwillingness of an individual and a group of people to meet these ideas-requirements.

From the book Our Unspoken Rules. Why do we do what we do by Wace Jordan

Gender representations Gender representations are understood as concepts, views, statements and explanations determined by the social context regarding the distribution of roles and status positions of men and women in society. Gender representations as meaningful

From the book Gender and Gender author Ilyin Evgeny Pavlovich

Gender stereotypes A stereotype is a set of traits attributed to members of a particular social group [cit. according to: 7, p. 147]. In domestic literature, the definition of gender stereotypes was proposed in the article by O. A. Voronina and T. A. Klimenkova “Gender and

From the book Differential Psychology of Professional Activity author Ilyin Evgeny Pavlovich

Gender prejudices Prejudice in social psychology is considered as a kind of social attitudes. Prejudices (prejudices) differ from the usual social attitude, first of all, by the content of their cognitive component. Prejudice -

From the book Conflict Management author Sheinov Viktor Pavlovich

Chapter 21 Gender Roles and Sexuality by E. V. Ioffe

From the book What gender is your brain? the author Lemberg Boris

Chapter 28 Gender Stereotypes in Sports N. S. Tsikunova

From the book How We Spoil Our Children [Collection of Parental Delusions] author Tsarenko Natalia

Chapter 15 Gender Features in Informational Bodybuilding Features of the Male and Female Brain Scientists have long shown interest in the peculiarities of the thinking of men and women and study the structure and functioning of their brain from this point of view.

From the author's book

Chapter 3 Gender Roles When I was growing up in the 1950s, life seemed simpler. In those days, everyone had their established traditional roles: mothers stayed at home with children, and fathers worked. My mother could go to work if she wanted to, but my father was supposed to

From the author's book

Chapter 4. Sex and gender stereotypes 4.1. Images of men and women in the mass consciousnessFor centuries, people have developed stereotypical ideas about the image of a man and a woman, which still apply to all representatives of one sex or another, regardless of their

From the author's book

Section four. Gender specifics of behavior

From the author's book

Chapter 17. Gender characteristics of crises in the family 17.1. Decreased satisfaction with marriage. E. Aleshina (1985) notes that both domestic and foreign studies show that after the birth of a child, the satisfaction with the marriage of the spouses begins to decrease. Till

From the author's book

CHAPTER 4 Gender aspects of professional activity The employment of women in professional work has grown rapidly throughout the 20th century. This trend has clearly manifested itself in the developed capitalist countries, not to mention our country, where the slogan: "Who

From the author's book

Gender collisions in the school class As practice has shown, many conflicts between classmates arise because of their belonging to different sexes. To get rid of this phenomenon, as we understand it, is impossible, but knowledge of the psychological characteristics of boys and girls,

From the author's book

Gender Differences in the Sequence of Brain Development The most profound difference between men and women lies not in any particular brain structure, but rather in the sequence of development of different brain regions. Different areas of the brain in both sexes

From the author's book

Instilling gender stereotypes - Do I look like a boy? - Not. But you don't look like a girl either. "Cheburashka goes to school." Edward Uspensky. Ask any 20 of your acquaintances about what truly masculine and truly feminine qualities they can name, what social